Howdy,

At the moment, I'm what you could call a would-be composer (I started with Reason 4, then tried FL Studio, Cubase, Nuendo and most recently Reaper), but I would very much like to get rid of the "would-be" part. Therefore, I've armed myself with an arsenal of various books and video tutorials concerning music theory and music production. Of course, that alone does not grant my wish, and this is where this forum comes in - I would appreciate any feedback regarding how and what to study, what to focus on and, last but not least, also welcome any comments on the quality of most of my compositions that I consider decent enough to make public. Make no mistake, I'm not posting this expecting to hear how awesome I'm; on the contrary, I'm right in the firing line, so man your cannons (but not flamethrowers) and fire, criticize and sling mud at me - I will gladly get obliterated Seriously though, just let me know what you think. I suppose others could find this sort of thread useful as well, so it's not so egocentric a post as it may look.

http://soundcloud.com/bluegalerev/sets/orchestral-tryouts
(By the way, it's a playlist, not just one composition.)

Now to the study materials and related questions - I'll list them in no particular order, and you'll hopefully be able to either recommend or not recommend them to me.

First things first:

1)Do I need to become familiar with sheet music?
2)What about scales and modes (i.e. how deep do I need to delve into them)?
3)What are the most important things to focus on (i.e. would it be a good idea to spend 2 years studying counterpoint or are there more essential areas to learn)?

I understand some of the questions might seem either stupid (like the first one, I think the answer is clearly "Yes", but I'm no authority on music, so why not ask) or difficult to answer, which is why I'l try to give you as much information about my knowledge of music as possible.

As you can tell from the compositions, I don't aspire to create Hollywood-grade pieces (although I'm a huge fan of Hans Zimmer), but rather come up with minimalist (I guess that's the most artistic and optimistic way to call them ) ones. They're mostly based on simple harmonic foundations (T-D-S), which is partly because that's the kind of music I like, partly because the former is also a nice excuse for the unwillingness to admit that my knowledge of harmony doesn't allow me to do much else. The chord progressions (yes, another term that indicates that I'm not a total noob) may be unoriginal, but I don't think that originality guarantees beautiful music - and that's what I'm after. I might have mixed him up with someone else, but I've heard Beethoven was outright obsessed with the T-D-S business, so I assume I don't need to be able to use zillions of chords in my music, either.

Where I do recognize the importance of originality is in the melody, and I realize full well that some of the tracks may lack or have a fairly vague melody. However, I have the feeling that out of all that can be learned about music, melody is something that you simply have to create on your own and no amount of advice, apart from some general tips I encountered (repetition, variation, unpleasant intervals), can help you in that respect. But that's not a problem for me, I like to experiment and do realize that the vast majority of what I invent is goint to be junk; nevertheless, every now and then, there will (hopefully) appear something decent among the junk.

Another point of interest lies in orchestration, and this is where my knowledge is sickeningly poor, which I suppose is very unfortunate considering I (try to) make orchestral compositions, more or less. But that brings me to study, for which I've already rustled up (don't ask me how) the following books:


Gilreath - The Guide to MIDI Orchestration
Greenberg - Understanding the Fundamentals of Music
Turkel - Arranging Techniques For Synthesists
Schoenberg - Fundamentals of Musical Composition
Aldwell and Schachter - Harmony and Voice Leading
Harnum- Basic Music Theory - How to Read, Write and Understand Written Music
Miller - The Complete Idiots Guide to Music Theory
Pilhofer and Day - Music Theory For Dummies
Ono - Music Theory Is Not Nuclear Physics
Berklee College Of Music - Harmony (several books)

By no means is this everything I have, but I guess a lot of it will prove to be of little use to me in the end. Contrariwise, feel free to recommend something completely different - I'm all ears. I have to say, though, that some of the books seem pretty formiddable, especially the ones written by professors, but that's why I'm making this post - to avoid getting lost in academic verbiage (although I do like to play with the language myself) and choose the correct methods and their sequence in my learning.

Thank you for your time and do not hesitate to ask if I forgot to mention something important.

Rev

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgYhcM5TB_c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD3VsesSBsw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTFUM4Uh_6Y

period

 

Study :
-The Concept of the Self
-The 'Idea' of Zero
-The Science of the Void (Nothingness)
-Theoretical Physics and Sciences
-Nature of Life

Use your mind, free-form flow of consciousness, close your eye/remove your 'feelings'/become mindlessly 'senseless' and feel your life around you and within your compositions.


Music is not science. People can treat it as such, but some of the most meaningful music are rather just composed sounds of life.

 

Study how to live on very little money...

 

1 will make you dig the 2 and the 3 automagically.
Read some shit music. Dig'em in and out.
Get some stuff you can read on several levels. Best example for this are indeed Bartok and Mozart.
It can be read as simple , but there's subtexts every flippin where.

For Children (bartok) , and the earlier quartet (mozart) are a good starter.

 

Study music fundamentals! Over and over! Then make a facebook event for twerking. Mission accomplished, you are now a composer! (in my book)

 

nobody mentioned ear training: u may learn all the notions in the world but if u can tell a major triad from a minor u won t savor what u do.
part of the process of learning music rules goes hand in hand with learning an instrument,so i think u re not an absolute beginner.
personally i suggest u not to try to learn everything togehter,build your knowledge gradually
start with music theory,then when u re comfortable with it u can go deeper with the study of harmony,harmony is essential if u want to be a composer,then u can start with the study of instrumentation and orchestration
u don t become a composer ( classically speaking) in six months,take your time,understnd what u read ,and judge with your ears.
this doesn t mean that u can t compose until u have finished learning,write music whenever u r inspired,apply what u learn,in the beginning your task will be to find the right chords to a melody,and it won t be easy but u have to start to challenge yourself at a certain point,if u want to have all the control of your work.
and listen,listen to everything u think it can help u:sometimes 3 seconds of music help u more than a book

 

These are words to live by

 

You just beat me on that subject
Ear training is the most important skill you need way better than all others beacuse if you have study eartraining and know all intervals and chords in your head it is so much easyer to compose because you already know how it sounds in your head instead of searching for the right note/chord riff etc etc..

The well know film about Mozart put it in the right perspective where Salieri was sitting in front of the Piano and search for the right note in a melody for a long time and Mozart just wrote everything down on paper without any instrument (but he could read and write the little black dots also) but if you cant write notes you can write down the chord names and melody note names on papers but ONLY you would know how it will sound

 

I recomended as I done:
1 Go to university to study composition, please try to avoid integral serial based ones (I missed that option). The history of music is very important to not repeat the pass (I usually record musicians and show them that a part of the music was already written by someone else)
of course counterpoint is necessary.... usually poor music (and theres a lot) do not even have a real melody (its always only BASS). Reading music is the minimum you need... do you know a great writer of poems and books that do not know how to write???? of course you can always cut/paste but its so boring...
2 Together listen all kinds of music, specially popular, be an expert in comuputerland (the greates teacher is to listen your records and compare), be critical and especify that (a real musician must give a very tecnical opinion, the personal one is only for you).
Third: choose your style but study other things (good composer need always fresh air)...
4 compose every day and improvise a lot.
Be aware that many musicians/bands had really good first albuns but without fresh air they repeats theirselves and each time they became poorer.
Hugs from Brazil!!!

 

I highly recomend the materials from Alexander Publishing. He not only teaches in depth about instrumentation and orchestration, but he then also describes how to apply what you learn through your computer's software. Most tutorials only teach one or the other.

He also helps you decide what questions are the best to ask, and how to go about answering them. He is a very intelligent person and has collected information from a vast number of resources and has presented the information step by step similar to how you may learn in college. It's a bit pricey, but if this is truly important to you then it shouldn't matter. If you want to take college level courses, then by all means you should. However I feel that these materials are the next best thing.

http://www.alexanderpublishing.com/

 

and find a good teacher,at least for the fondamentals,i looked at all the booksu mentioned,and,they r all good and valid,but obviously they all take some things for granted,a good teacher helps u to save a lot of time

 

The piece you posted is quite nice in my opinion. (Classically trained composer here.) It has something a lot of people writing classical/minimalist-classical music don't have: an inoffensive sense of sounding good. I have heard far, far worse pieces on soundtrack albums and in music theory classes, believe me. In other words, if that's what you're making at the moment, you have a great starting point (in my humble opinion). Based on what you've said about your motivation and your long-term interests, I think the thing to do is to keep doing what you're doing in terms of composition, while exploring and delving into music theory.

Put it this way: composing is an art, not a science; but music theory IS a science (or at least more of a science). The more you explore and understand in music theory the more tools you'll have at your artistic disposal.

I'd not bother with a lot of the big massive hardback books on orchestration/theory/harmony etc. If you're new to classical/formal music theory, I'd grab the ABRSM Guide to Music Theory Part I and read it. That'll get you up to speed on reading sheet music and a lot of the basic concepts behind music. You don't have to learn this: but why not? Reading sheet music is EASY and you'll be able to study all the marvelous scores out there (use the IMSLP to get free scores of literally all classical music to look at). Arming yourself with the basic concepts of a pre-university music theory course (i.e. the ABRSM music theory is what young musicians/learning musicians in the UK have to study at the same time as they learn their actual instrument) will let you dive into whatever more advance parts of music theory you find interesting, and will let you read scores to see how the (especially classical) composers achieved effects that you like.

One last note, you ask for advice about, e.g. whether to invest 2 years learning counterpoint. The answer is: it's up to you. Do you like counterpoint? Do you want to write fugues? Do you like the "intense" weaving effect of heavy counterpoint? If so, then go for it. Otherwise, I would still recommend learning the basics of as many areas of music theory as you can. You never know from which little bit of theory knowledge you might be able to realise your next great piece.

 

Re-read the comments above by ovlaf - pure gold!

 

When you say "composer"? What do you mean? Someone who writes contemporary classical music for a symphony to be performed in concert halls? Very hard making money there, unless you're really, really good, and go through the system showing great acumen along the way (Edgar Meyer, for example). If so, you need to get back into school, start studying theory and composition, and start making the rounds, meeting all the who's who in that business. You can get by this way though through teaching, having some music performed, and selling a little of it. You're likely to live a modest lifestyle, but it's doable.

Or are you talking about a film/TV composer? That's where so many want to be. If that's the case, then it's a completely different game, as there is hardly one path to this. And certainly not one style that gets guaranteed recognition, or hire. There's quite the difference between John Williams, and Giorgio Moroder. But both have a few Oscars and are insanely successful, just in different ways.

As to film music itself, I think Danny Elfman said it well in an interview in Jeff Rona's book. If you want to get work, learn to basically plagiarize other composers. Or imitate them as close as possible without opening yourself up to a lawsuit. I know what you're thinking, WTF? Well, that's the way the industry works. It's very risk averse, and you'll frequently come across a project that's already been temp tracked by another composer, and the filmmaker will want you to imitate that score. Do it well, and you're likely to get hired. Filmmakers also see safety in what is professional sounding, even if wholly unoriginal. Hence, they're more often to hire someone to make canned orchestral music, than someone doing something new and bold. This isn't to say something bold won't sell. It will, it's just harder. A lot harder. But if you do create your own sound, and take this path, you're more likely to stand out and get greater accolades and perhaps better opportunities along the way. It's just not easy. It takes a really open minded filmmaker to see that, and a visionary composer to pull it off. As a point in example. 99% of all filmmakers would have gasped at having the movie Chariots of Fire scored with synthesizers. But Hugh Hudson and David Puttnam did just that in hiring Vangelis. It worked so well it won an Oscar, and changed the industry a little.

You also need to understand things about film music that aren't really music. They are about drama, story telling, and communication. It's not what you know. It's not really even who you know, it's who knows you. If I'm a filmmaker looking for a composer. And you're an average composer but I know you, and Intsechead from above is a great composer, but I don't know him, who do you think I'm going to hire?

1) Do I need to become familiar with sheet music? - Depends. It certainly can't hurt. I learned to read music 25 years ago, then as years went by never used it. Maybe you'll head that way, maybe you'll take a different path. James Horner has a PhD and can sight read and notate music to perfection. So can Eliot Goldenthal. Hans Zimmer can okay, but is slow at it. Paul McCartney and the aforementioned Vangelis can hardly read it at all. Did that affect any of their success? Would you question any of their skills or knowledge about composing music?


2)What about scales and modes (i.e. how deep do I need to delve into them)? I would study this as you can. A little each day. If you want to be a performer, orchestrator, arranger, or transcribe and notate music, then study a lot more. If you're into the abstract, study less, but be aware of it.


3)What are the most important things to focus on (i.e. would it be a good idea to spend 2 years studying counterpoint or are there more essential areas to learn)? Listed above. I would recommend owning two books though if into film scoring. The first is Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright's book On The Track. It's big, and thick, and you wouldn't sit down and read it in one setting. Or a week, or a month. The other is Richard Davis book Guide to Film Scoring. It's less about actual scoring and composition (you'll want the Karlin and Wright book for that), and more about the business and process of film scoring, but it's very well written and easy to read.

 

though I havent read through the comments the very best thing you could do is NOT wasting time on bs philosophies but produce as much sht as you possibly can...this way practice makes perfect and your sht is already sounding decent and musical to my ears...not something I could replicate easily even when using premade loops etc...hook up with indie filmmakers they need scores all the time